Ripping out KDE and starting over

[stychokiller]

How does one go about removing a currently running (actually limping!) version of KDE and get a working version
installed from the gentoo packages? <b>emerge --unmerge kde</b> does not seem to remove files from where ever
portage files are stored on the PC and simply proceeds to use the KDE files already on the PC over again when
<b>emerge -q kde</b> is run after <b>emerge --unmerge kde</b>. I do not want to reinstall all of gentoo again,
just the KDE stuff, especially the code that allows a new user to be set up during the first login. Currently, the system
reports that "kstartupconfig could not be run", and the switches tab of KMix only has headphones listed, which means that
there's something wrong with the KDE audio files as well. All of this came about because the system locked up while trying
to login to a new session as a different user. I was forced to power down the machine in a locked up state, so I don't see much
point in examining log files to find out how broken KDE really is.

[mark_alec]

Assuming you initially installed kde via 'emerge kde', you will need to 'emerge -C kde', followed by an 'emerge --depclean -av' to remove all additional kde packages. Be very careful that no important packages are removed.

There is probably no reason to remove kde and install it again, just state exactly what your problems are, and maybe they can be resolved here.
_________________
www.gentoo.org.au || #gentoo-au

[stychokiller]

I thought that having to power down from a locked-up state would make it pretty clear that the problems
with KDE are pretty much unknown at this stage. The last time I had either of the problems mentioned
in my initial post, the only solution I was able to determine was to re-install KDE. Hopefully, I won't have
to re-install X11 as well.

[bLUEbYTE84]

[shimage]

IIRC, the "kde" ebuild just pulls in all the dependencies for a full KDE environment. That is to say, it doesn't actually have any files of its own. So as mark_alec mentioned above, you need to 'emerge --depclean' to actually remove anything. Or if that's too scary, 'emerge -p --depclean' to get a list of things that it wants to remove, and then 'emerge -C <packages> <that> <you> <want> <to> <get> <rid> <of>'. kstartupconfig is in kdelibs, so if that's all you want, you could just re-emerge it: "emerge kdelibs". As for the audio thing, it's not obvious to me that it has anything to do with KDE's audio (arts), but I guess you could re-emerge it, if that's what you use.

If you have sshd running (which I usually do), and you have another computer nearby (which I usually do), you can ssh in and restart xdm from there, which should be more graceful. I don't have that much experience, but I haven't yet had X lock so bad that sshd stopped working. I'm sure it could happen, but it hasn't yet for me.

[stychokiller]

@bLUEbYTE84
Thanks for the heads up re: alt+sysreq+s. Magic Sysrq is already compiled into the kernel, so I'll try to use it next time.
@shimage
I already did the re-emerge of kde, but it did not solve either problem. I did go to the trouble of emerging xfce4,
and audio does indeed work on that desktop environment (using gxine), so there's definitely a problem with KDE.
The problem with the audio as far as I can see is that the switches tab of KMix is only populated with headphone, missing
are:Line-In, Mic Boost, Video, Mix mono, Mix, etc. Examination of the /dev directory reveals that all of the entries are there,
and I can hear the Audio being switched in during boot up, so KDE is damaged somewhere.
It would really help if the folks at KDE would publish some sort of theory of operation of just how KDE goes about
starting itself, and which configuration files control what functions, etc. I know that X11 has to be working properly for
any of the desktop environments to startup & perform properly also, so knowing what KDE expects from X11 would be a
great source of info as well. A lot of the .* files that exist in a /home directory are not being written to the new users being added,
I assume that this is what kstartupconfig does. Unfortunately, just copying the .* files and directories from a working /home
directory doesn't work since some of their contents are magic numbers and are dependent on the /home directory that
they're located in. Is there some way of diving into the X-Window system and figuring out if X11 is working properly and
capable of allowing more than one user to be logged in at the same time?

[stychokiller]

Just for everyone's information: I fixed the user-login problem. Apparently, KDE is too stupid to deal with the wrong
ownership of the home directory. I changed it from root:users to jimbot:users and now all users can login to KDE.
I guess someone can mark this one as PARTIALLY SOLVED.
Now I just have to find the solution to the KDE sound problem, i.e. why does gxine play sounds (even from a streaming radio
station!), and KDE does not make any sounds and does not show the proper widgets/settings in KMix??

[jstead1]

Have you tried making a new user, the standard way, giving them membership in the appropriate groups, and then logging in to kde with that user?

If that works, then there is no problem with kde, the problem would be the settings in the old users home directory.

Just in case, here's an example of adding a user (change the groups after -G to what you consider appropriate:

[stychokiller]

@jstead1:
Actually, I spoke (typed?) too soon! The login problem is still there. I'm currently in the process of re-installing the
entire gentoo release on the Machine in question. It would be nice to know what caused the problem, but I'm tired of
messing with it. Your proposed solution was already tried and didn't help, thanx anyway.